"Everything takes longer than it takes" (1996?)

Laurence Horn laurence.horn at YALE.EDU
Fri Jun 15 14:39:22 UTC 2007


At 6:57 AM -0400 6/15/07, Marc Sacks wrote:
>  >From Jonathan Lighter:
>>  Sometime between 1968 and 1973 an older friend advised me that "Things
>>  take longer than they do."
>>
>
>In the same vein:
>
>"People do what they do all the time all the time" (my invention, when in
>college; it seemed profound at the time) and "I feel more like I do now
>than I did yesterday" (a personal favorite; I don't know its origin).
>
>Marc Sacks
>msacks at theworld.com
>
A couple of years ago in a related thread I recall mentioning a
related one which sounds more tautologous than it is :

"I wish I could be what I was when I wished I could be what I am."

I copied this from the wall of a bathroom stall at USC in 1972-73
and, in checking google, I find exactly one hit for it, in "The
Neopian Times":

In a neat, careful hand I didn't recognise, someone had written words
below. I wish I could be what I was when I wished I could be what I
am.

I guess that's not enough for it to qualify as "a saying"...

LH

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org



More information about the Ads-l mailing list